A Bush in-law suffers political defeat

Seems like just yesterday that he was attending the wedding of Henry Hager and Jenna Bush at the Bush family ranch in Crawford, enjoying the sounds of Nashville's Tyrone "Super T" Smith.

But within a few weeks of the May 10 wedding, Virginia's former lieutenant governor John Hager -- and father of the groom Henry -- was ousted as chairman of the state Republican Party by an ultra-conservative state legislator, Jeff Frederick.

Seems the party is moving right as the state is moving left. To Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia political guru who writes for realclearpolitics.com, this portends a Democratic pickup of a Senate seat from Virginia -- and maybe even Electoral College votes for Barack Obama.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Shealah Craighead / White House

Comments

[Pam]

Huh? Why was he ousted? If he was ousted by another ultra-conservative, I don't get it? I'm glad the state is going Democrat and hopefully votes for Obama, but why was he ousted? Not clear at all.

[Ted]

Um, that's the point - Hagar isn't an ultra-conservative. In states that have two strong parties statewide you sometimes get a nutter from a party's fringe that takes control of that state party for a while. They don't usually stay for more than a couple of years but in that time a great deal of destruction occurs to that party's centrists.

All of this begs an interesting question; in a country like the US that is basically center-right how does a demonstrable extremish liberal like Obama get elected? How does he put together a coalition of 50%+1?

I will be very interested to see that responses. I am hopeful for some fact based discourse. Should I hold my breath?

[Robert Finnegan]

Nothing surprising by your conclusion since 90% of what is written by you leftist Times jounalists is anti-conservative anyway. I bet if Bush was using 213,000 kwH of electricity at his Crawford ranch each month, you would delay an urgent bowel condition to post it. But, since it's Al 'the baffoon' Gore who has this distinction (determined by public record through the Freedom of Information Act), it isn't news worthy. By the way, that is enough electricity to power 232 average U.S. homes for a month. What hypocrisy and bias we see from politicians and hack journalists like yourselves.